Upper Canada Village

Today we had a combined preparation day with many of the other senior couples! This time we invited all of them to come down to OUR part of Canada.We have a place here called Upper Canada Village. It is Canada's version of a pioneer village. It is a whole village made to look like life in 1830-1860. In the 1950's Canada undertook a massive project to improve the St.Lawrence River to make it a better transportation route for large ocean vessels. In order to do this, they had to flood approx. 20,000 acres of land and several small villages. Since many of these buildings were historically significant, they moved many of the buildings to Upper Canada Village & restored them. They also had to consider the many people buried in those areas. They ended up relocating 5000 remains and 2500 monuments! These pictures are taken from the top of the telegraph signal tour. This village reminds me of Pioneer village in Salt Lake, up by the This is the Place monument. People are dressed in period costumes in each house, to tell you the history of that home, there are wagon & hay rides, etc. They have a still-working sawmill where they still use much of the sawn logs: It was an absolutely gorgeous day for us to walk all throughout the village. Had to stop at THIS spot... It sounded like fun: They had a man's figure set up out in the field and they had frying pans, rolling pins, and hammers to toss.... Of course, I missed. My man is so wonderful that I've never HAD to throw anything at him! Sister Davis tried the rolling pin... she missed too... I guess we've just got great husbands!... and lousy aim!They have a working cheese factory - where they taught us about how those famous cheese curds are made that they use in the Canadian favorite of Poutine.

They also have a working bakery... and the MEN are the bakers!

We ended the day with a canal barge ride drawn by a horse on shore:

It was a lovely day and we all enjoyed it. Here is a picture of all of us, minus Elder & Sister Davis who had already gone to the car, so I'll put on their picture from the barge...

Left to right: The Levitres, the Giles, The Florences, and us.Then all the couples came back to our apartment for dinner. Of course, I forgot to take a picture of the great way we fit everyone in, all 10 of us sitting down at a table to eat dinner in our small little apartment. We had a great time together. We have found that these get-togethers are really good for our dispositions. After working so much all on our own, or all the meetings with the young elders and sisters, we find ourselves hungry for adult friendships. Sometimes the isolation can get to you. It was such a great day all around.